18 December 2012

As a teacher, I suppose I try to look at particular subjects
without the normal veil of cynicism and sarcasm I'd normally wear. And there
are many, many things I've learned not to take as seriously as I've gotten
older and so much wiser. Football?
Basically it's an opportunity to eat Buffalo Chicken Dip once a year. Immigration? My great-grandma was an
immigrant and she was all right. Besides, we can't rely on white people to make
the cuisines of other ethnicities. That's how we ended up with Taco Bell.

And as far as political theater goes, I think the fiscal
cliff is at least as funny as The Cosby Show and definitely funnier than
Blossom and Saved by the Bell. Boehner hasn't given us any catch-phrases or buzzwords
(Joey Lawrence only had "Whoa!" which isn't really a catch-phrase as
much as it's a noise that sits just above grunt on any developmental
vocalization chart.) I know that Congress will either work it out, or it won't.
But no matter what happens it ain't going to kill me.

But explaining this lock-down procedure with the same tone
that I'd use to explain the rock cycle or the Big Bang theory has framed the subject
of gun control and free, unlimited access to certain guns and types of
ammunition in an entirely new shade of absurdity for me. Because it's not
funny. At all.

Since Friday we've experienced an inconveniently-timed fire
drill, an urging to review lock-down procedure and to carefully consider the possibility of a shooter in the building with
our students, and will discuss ways to improve the process after school
today as a faculty. Yesterday, as California Area School District went into
lock-down, I had to respond to the question, "What if he shoots the glass
and opens the door from the inside?" by explaining a secret scenario that
I've been replaying in my head since Columbine. I told him, "See this lab
stool? I'd beat him with it until he stopped moving."

Brilliant, right?

I actually had to say that to my 4th period. And
since then I've discussed other contingencies to protect our students with the
teachers on my floor, the fruit of our labors being the idea that we need to
use tape to mark visibility lines on the floor so the students know exactly where
and what a potential shooter could and couldn't see. A whole new shade of absurdity.

Most of the people reading this probably experienced Air
Raid Drills and fire drills and severe weather drills as students, but nothing
comes close to the eerie silence of 900 people pressed against the walls and
floors of their classrooms in total darkness and total stillness. Nothing comes
closer to the raw emotion of an actual incident than a lock-down drill because
a fire comes with the sensory experience of alarms and smoke, and a severe
weather alert is usually preceded by a National Weather Service warning. This
lock-down, on the heels of what happened last Friday, had the somberness of a
memorial, which I suppose for some of us, it was. It was an extended, shared
moment of silence.

I know most teachers remember the Sandy Hook—or Columbine,
or Paducah—shooting victims every time they look into the faces of their own
students—your kids—and have to explain how things could possibly go in an
actual emergency, even if they don't know for certain how a real incident would
go down. I know when I walk through the cafeteria in the morning I see escape
routes and secure walls. When we have a bomb threat, I count heads over and
over as we evacuate the building, a habit I picked up as a whitewater raft
guide back in the Nineties. When somebody cuts across school property wearing bright
orange, carrying a hunting rifle, we call the office who immediately notifies
the police even though we 'kind of' know how his intentions are good.

Thanks to the proliferation of cheap handguns and abundant
ammo, that's the new reality in our nation's schools.

Look, even most sensible non-gun owners know that most gun
owners only ever look down their sights at deer and turkey. Or they should know
that. And I don't think anybody is trying to change this particular situation.

Some of you keep a pistol or two in a nightstand or closet
for that terrible moment when an intruder kicks the door down and pushes into
your bedroom or into your kid's room. Most of you are more than happy to never
use your weapon in the capacity of home defense, and are more than happy to
take it out to the range a few times a month to shoot at black circles on a big
piece of paper.

I believe the Second Amendment protects your right to bear
those arms, and believe that right should be defended, same as the right to
worship and the right to speak as you please. And although I'm no
constitutional scholar, I can't see the Second Amendment ever changing to take
those rights from you, nor would I want it to. There's a reason Jefferson
plopped that one down at number two.

I'm just going to speak for myself here, but what I'd like
to see happen is something that should've happened without so many meaningless
deaths. I'd like to see a ban on assault rifles for all non-military and
non-law enforcement uses, and I'd like to see tighter restrictions on the way
handguns and ammo are distributed to the general public. Is that taking away a
gun-owner's right to hunt, or defend himself or his home?

Statistics can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. Per
capita stats would look much different than straight stats, numbers would vary
by state and by year, and even the method of data collection could be used to skew
statistics to benefit a pro-gun or anti-gun stance. And I suppose that's why
I'm saying what I need to say here, in a post, rather than in a circular series
of internet quibbles that either end like they start, or with an unfriending or
unfollowing.

But the one personal statistic I can't interpret objectively
in the number of students I've personally known who have been injured or killed,
accidentally or intentionally, by a handgun. I refuse to see them as numbers
instead of names because I can't afford to forget the emptiness and sadness I
felt upon learning that a young life had been extinguished so senselessly. I've
been to the funerals. It's real. The names mean more to me than a number ever
will.

Am I biased?

I have to be.

Would they all be here today handguns weren't so accessible?

Possibly.

You know there's no way anybody can be certain.

And what I didn't say on Facebook, and what I believe with
all my heart, is that the kind of person who would wait three days for a
handgun, the kind of person who understands that there's a reason ammo
purchases should be regulated, is the kind of person who probably gets wrongly
offended when things like this come up. Most of the people who own guns never
fire it in a non-recreational capacity. I know that guns are passed on from fathers
to sons in a tradition that predates the Constitution. I know that lives have
been saved by quick-acting gun owners.

Nobody's saying they should have to give up their guns. I'm
not.

I'm saying it's time to compromise. It's time to give in to
the demands for regulated ammo and a ban on assault rifles for non-military and
non-law enforcement uses.

And do I have an answer for the folks who feel that this is
a slippery slope to total civilian disarmament?

I do.

I'd say to have as much faith in your Constitution's ability to protect the United States of America as you
do in your gun's ability to protect your family or yourself.